No. 15-50759
In the
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
DEFENSE DISTRIBUTED; SECOND AMENDMENT FOUNDATION, INCORPORATED,
PLAINTIFFS – APPELLANTS,
V.
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE; JOHN F. KERRY, In His Official Capacity
as the Secretary of the Department of State; DIRECTORATE OF DEFENSE TRADE
CONTROLS, Department of State Bureau of Political Military Affairs; KENNETH B.
HANDELMAN, Individually and in His Official Capacity as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Defense Trade Controls in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs;
C. EDWARD PEARTREE, Individually and in His Official Capacity as the Director of
the Office of Defense Trade Controls Policy Division; SARAH J. HEIDEMA, Individually and in Her Official Capacity as the Division Chief, Regulatory and Multilateral Affairs, Office of Defense Trade Controls Policy; GLENN SMITH, Individually and in His
Official Capacity as the Senior Advisor, Office of Defense Trade Controls,
DEFENDANTS – APPELLEES.
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Western District of Texas
Brief of the Cato Institute
as Amicus Curiae in Support of Plaintiffs-Appellants
Ilya Shapiro
Counsel of Record
Randal J. Meyer (admission pending)
CATO INSTITUTE
1000 Mass. Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 842-0200
ishapiro@cato.org
rmeyer@cato.org
Supplemental Certificate of Interested Persons
Case 15-50759, Defense Distributed, et al., v. U.S. Dep’t of State et al.
The undersigned counsel of record certifies that the following
listed persons and entities as described in the fourth sentence of Rule
28.2.1 have an interest in the outcome of this case. These representations are made in order that the judges of this court may evaluate possible disqualification or recusal.
Person or Entity
Connection to Case
Ilya Shapiro
Counsel to amicus
Randal J. Meyer
Counsel to amicus
Cato Institute
Amicus curiae
Amicus curiae Cato Institute is a Kansas nonprofit corporation. It
has no parent companies, subsidiaries, or affiliates. It does not issue
shares to the public.
/s/ Ilya Shapiro
1
Table of Contents
Page
Supplemental Certificate of Interested Persons ...................................... 1
Table of Contents ...................................................................................... 2
Table of Authorities ................................................................................... 3
Interest and Independence of Amicus Curiae .......................................... 7
Summary of Argument .............................................................................. 8
Argument ................................................................................................... 9
I.
Defense Distributed’s Speech Does Not Lose First Amendment
Protection Simply Because It Could Be Used Unlawfully ............ 9
A. Defense Distributed’s Files Constitute Protected Speech ......... 9
B. Protected Speech Does Not Lose First Amendment Protection Simply Because It Could Be Used to Unlawful Ends ...... 12
II.
The State Department’s Categorical Ban on Distributing the
CAD Files Via the Internet Is an Unlawful Prior Restraint on
the Mass Dissemination of Protected Speech .............................. 24
A. The Internet Is an Essential Method of Mass Dissemination, So a Prior Restraint on Its Use Is Suspect................... 24
B. Prior Restraint of the Mass Dissemination of Protected
Speech Cannot Even Pass Rational Basis Review ............... 26
Conclusion ............................................................................................... 31
Certificate of Compliance ........................................................................ 32
Certificate of Filing and Service ............................................................. 32
2
Table of Authorities
Cases
Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition,
535 U.S. 234 (2002)....................................................................... passim
Bartnicki v. Vopper,
532 U.S. 514 (2001)................................................................... 22, 23, 30
Brandenburg v. Ohio,
395 U.S. 444 (1969) (per curiam) ................................... 9, 15, 18, 19, 23
Broadrick v. Oklahoma,
413 U.S. 601 (1973)................................................................... 15, 26, 29
Brown v. Entm’t Merchants Ass’n,
131 S. Ct. 2729 (2011)........................................................................... 10
Butler v. Michigan,
352 U.S. 380 (1957)....................................................................... passim
Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire,
315 U.S. 568 (1942)............................................................................... 23
Cohen v. California,
403 U.S. 15 (1971)................................................................................. 17
Defense Distributed v. U.S. Dep’t of State, No. 1:15-CV-372 RP,
2015 WL 4658921 (W.D. Tex. Aug. 4, 2015) .................................. 10, 26
Hess v. Indiana,
414 U.S. 105 (1973) (per curiam) ......................................................... 15
Junger v. Daley,
209 F.3d 481 (6th Cir. 2000)........................................................... 10, 12
3
Kingsley Int’l Pictures Corp. v. Regents of Univ. of N.Y.,
360 U.S. 684 (1959)............................................................................... 30
Miller v. California,
413 U.S. 15 (1973)................................................................................. 23
NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co.,
458 U.S. 886 (1982)......................................................................... 20, 27
New York Times Co. v. Unites States,
376 U.S. 254 (1964)............................................................................... 19
New York Times Co. v. Unites States,
403 U.S. 713 (1971) (per curiam) .................................. 18, 19, 27-28, 30
People v. Winters,
294 N.Y. 545 (1945) .............................................................................. 17
Sable Communications of California, Inc. v. FCC,
492 U.S. 115 (1989)................................................................... 21, 22, 28
Scales v. United States,
367 U.S. 203 (1961)............................................................................... 21
Schneider v. State,
308 U.S. 147 (1939)............................................................. 16, 25, 27, 30
Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley,
273 F.3d 429 (2d Cir. 2001) .................................................................. 10
Winters v. New York,
333 U.S. 507 (1948)............................................................................... 17
Statutes
18 U.S.C. § 2256(B), (D) (2000) .......................................................... 14-15
4
22 U.S.C. §§ 2771-82 (2015) ...................................................................... 8
22 U.S.C. § 2778(a)-(e) (2014) ................................................................. 30
Michigan Penal Code § 343 (1955) .......................................................... 18
N.Y Penal Law § 1141(2) (McKinney’s 1947) ......................................... 17
Other Authorities
22 C.F.R. 120.1(a) (2015) ........................................................................... 8
49 Fed. Reg. 47,682, 47,683 (Dec. 6, 1984) ............................................... 9
55 Cong. Rec. 2009 (1917) (remarks of Sen. Henry F. Ashurst) ............ 20
Aaron Mamiit, 3.2 Billion: Number Of People Using The Internet
Today, Tech Times (May 28 2015),
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/55773/20150528/3-2-billionnumber-of-people-using-the-internet-today.htm ................................. 24
Andy Greenberg, 3D-Printed Guns As Art: London Design Museum
Buys Two ‘Liberator’ Printed Pistols, Forbes (Sept. 15, 2013),
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/09/15/3d-printedguns-as-art-london-design-museum-buys-two-liberator-printedpistols .............................................................................................. 12, 22
Defendant’s Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion For a Preliminary
Injunction, Defense Distributed v. U.S. Dep’t of State, No. 1:15-CV372 RP, 2015 WL 4658921 (W.D. Tex. Aug. 4, 2015)........................... 13
D.J. Pangburn, 3D-Printed ‘Liberator’ Guns Become a Chandelier
Sculpture, The Creators Project (Aug. 6, 2015),
http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/3d-printed-liberator-gunsbecome-a-chandelier-sculpture............................................................. 11
5
Eugene Volokh, Crime-Facilitating Speech, 57 Stan. L. Rev. 1096
(2005) ............................................................................................... 13-14
How Americans Get Their News, American Press Inst., (Mar. 17,
2014), http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/
survey-research/how-americans-get-news ........................................... 25
Internet 2012 in Numbers, Pingdom.com (January 16, 2013),
http://royal.pingdom.com/2013/01/16/internet-2012-in-numbers ........ 24
Internet Users, Internet Live Statistics (last updated July 1, 2014),
http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users................................. 24
Natasha Lennard. The Pirate Bay Steps in to Distribute 3-D Gun
Designs, Salon (May 10, 2013), http://www.salon.com/2013/05/10/
the_pirate_bay_steps_in_to_distribute_3d_gun_designs .................... 31
Scott J. Grunewald, American Gun Show Uses Art and 3D Printing
to Start a Conversation about Guns, 3D Print.com (Nov. 11, 2015),
http://3dprint.com/104975/american-gun-show-art ............................. 11
St. George Tucker, 2 Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of
England with Notes of Reference, to the Constitution and Laws, of
the Federal Government of the United States, and the
Commonwealth of Virginia (1803) ....................................................... 28
6
Interest and Independence of Amicus Curiae
The Cato Institute is a nonpartisan public policy research foundation dedicated to advancing the principles of individual liberty, free
markets, and limited government. Cato’s Center for Constitutional
Studies was established in 1989 to help restore the principles of constitutional government that are the foundation of liberty. Toward those
ends, Cato publishes books and studies, conducts conferences, and publishes the annual Cato Supreme Court Review.
This case concerns amicus because protecting the fundamental
rights to freedom of expression and armed self-defense lies at the heart
of Cato’s mission. It is not for the State Department to abrogate lawful
First Amendment speech as a vehicle for suppressing the disfavored exercise of Second Amendment rights.
No one other than the amicus and its counsel wrote this brief in
whole or in part. The cost of its preparation was paid solely by amicus.
The parties have consented to the filing of this brief.
7
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT
Defense Distributed, a nonprofit organization that promotes popular access to constitutionally protected firearms, generates and disseminates information over the Internet for a variety of scientific, artistic,
and political reasons. The State Department has required Defense Distributed to submit to a regulatory prior restraint on Internet distribution of certain CAD (Computer-Aided Drafting) files—complex threedimensional printing files with no intellectual-property protection—
even domestically, under the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and International Trafficking in Arms Regulations (ITAR). See generally 22
U.S.C. §§ 2771-82 (2015); 22 C.F.R. 120.1(a) (2015).
But Defense Distributed’s protected speech cannot be suppressed
merely because the lawful CAD files may potentially be used for unlawful purposes by foreign third parties. Such a prior restraint cannot even
pass rational basis review. This court should reverse the district court
and grant a preliminary injunction.
8
ARGUMENT
I. DEFENSE DISTRIBUTED’S SPEECH DOES NOT LOSE
FIRST AMENDMENT PROTECTION SIMPLY BECAUSE IT
COULD BE USED UNLAWFULLY
The government concedes that Defense Distributed’s files are protected speech under ITAR. See 49 Fed. Reg. 47,682, 47,683 (Dec. 6,
1984) (addressing congressional “[c]concerns” over “[ITAR] licensing requirements as they relate[] to the First Amendment,” and noting that
there is no “prepublication review requirement” under AECA or ITAR
for technical information distributed domestically). Because foreign persons may potentially download the files and use them for potentially illegal ends, however, the State Department imposed a prior restraint
against Defense Distributed’s sharing of certain files with Americans.
But the Supreme Court has made clear that speech does not lose First
Amendment protection merely because it might be used to further criminal ends. See generally, e.g., Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S.
234 (2002); Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).
A. Defense Distributed’s Files Constitute Protected Speech
Defense Distributed is not in the business of distributing arms.
What it distributes—as recognized by the court below—is computer
code and other expressive files. Such code and files are speech for First
9
Amendment purposes. See Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Corley, 273
F.3d 429, 447 (2d Cir. 2001); Junger v. Daley, 209 F.3d 481, 485 (6th
Cir. 2000). The Supreme Court has also held that the First Amendment
protects the expression rendered by videogame computer code. See
Brown v. Entm’t Merchants Ass’n, 131 S. Ct. 2729, 2733 (2011) (“Like
the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video game
[code] communicate[s] ideas—and even social messages . . . through features distinctive to the medium . . . . That suffices to confer First
Amendment protection.”). When information is distributed in an opensource format, as Defense Distributed’s is, it is a public work that users
are encouraged to improve and modify. Defense Distributed v. U.S. Dep’t
of State, No. 1:15-CV-372 RP, 2015 WL 4658921, at *6 (W.D. Tex. Aug.
4, 2015) (“[T]he files are intended to be used by others as a baseline to
be built upon, altered and otherwise utilized.”).
Taken as a whole, the files distributed by Defense Distributed
have lead to significant political, scientific, and artistic expression, including driving the novel field of 3D-printed art. Computer code, including in the form of CAD files, is simply a medium through which expres-
10
sion occurs—and open-source code provides an open canvas for artists
and technicians to improve upon.
Artists have even exhibited 3D-printed modifications of Defense
Distributed’s “Liberator” model, “attempting to start a conversation
about the United States’ obsession with guns, not by focusing on one
side of the issue, but by bringing artists from both sides together and
exposing the entirety of the complexity of the issue.” Scott J.
Grunewald, American Gun Show Uses Art and 3D Printing to Start a
Conversation
about
Guns,
3D
Print.com
(Nov.
11,
2015),
http://3dprint.com/104975/american-gun-show-art. At another show,
one artist, Addie Wagenknecht, took 13 3D-printed Liberator models
and “assemble[d] them into a striking sculpture [a chandelier] that is
equal parts futuristic, menacing, and comically absurd.” D.J. Pangburn,
3D-Printed ‘Liberator’ Guns Become a Chandelier Sculpture, The Creators Project (Aug. 6, 2015), http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/3dprinted-liberator-guns-become-a-chandelier-sculpture.1
In fact, Wagenknecht “didn’t have a 3D printer so I had a friend print them
for me in Germany” from a “torrent” of the CAD file (a special “mirrored” type of file
that contains metadata but not content). Id. If the State Department’s argument is
correct, she thus unwittingly became an international arms trafficker.
1
11
Indeed, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum of Art and Design
purchased two Liberator pistols from Defense Distributed for a design
festival. Andy Greenberg, 3D-Printed Guns As Art: London Design Museum Buys Two ‘Liberator’ Printed Pistols, Forbes (Sept. 15, 2013),
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/09/15/3d-printed-gunsas-art-london-design-museum-buys-two-liberator-printed-pistols.
Cody
Wilson, Defense Distributed’s founder, told a reporter “that he’s happy
to see his 3D-printed gun recognized by the museum as the incendiary
political symbol he’s always intended it to be.” Id.
As courts have properly recognized, computer code “has both an
expressive feature and a functional feature.” Junger, 209 F.3d at 485.
Open-source CAD files, like the Liberator’s, are a unique medium of expression and are integral to the development of the burgeoning field of
3D-design art, as well as 3D technical design itself. Accordingly, the
open-source CAD files are protected speech.
B. Protected Speech Does Not Lose First Amended Protection Simply Because It Could Be Used to Unlawful Ends
The government defends its prior restraint of domestic public
speech on the Internet with the vague-at-best claim that Defense Distributed’s files could produce weapons that could be used to commit
12
crimes outside the United States. Defendant’s Opposition to Plaintiff’s
Motion for a Preliminary Injunction 10, Defense Distributed, 2015 WL
4658921 (“The unrestricted provision of such undetectable firearms by
U.S. persons to individuals in other countries . . . presents a serious risk
of acts of violence in those countries . . . [such as] an assassination, for
the manufacture of spare parts by embargoed nations, terrorist groups,
or guerilla groups, or to compromise aviation security . . . .”). Just because lawful computer code can be used in a potentially unlawful manner by foreign persons does not constitutionally permit the executive to
impose a prior restraint on Americans’ expression. See, e.g., Free Speech
Coalition, 535 U.S. at 245 (“The prospect of crime, however, by itself
does not justify laws suppressing protected speech.”); see also the slew
of Supreme Court precedents discussed infra in this section.
“[R]estrictions on [lawful] . . . speech [that could potentially be
used unlawfully] can’t be easily justified under existing First Amendment doctrine.” Eugene Volokh, Crime-Facilitating Speech, 57 Stan. L.
Rev. 1096, 1105 (2005). Consider that “[a] textbook, magazine, Web site,
or seminar describ[ing] how people can make bombs (conventional or
nuclear), make guns, make drugs . . . painlessly and reliably commit su-
13
icide . . . pick locks . . . or more effectively resist arrest during civil disobedience” has academic and scientific speech value, but could potentially be used for unlawful conduct. See id. at 1097, 1111-14. Indeed,
Books about explosives can teach students principles of
chemistry, and can help engineers use explosives for laudable purposes. Books that explain how to investigate arson,
homicide, or poisoning can help detectives and would-be detectives, though they can also help criminals learn how to
avoid detection.
Id. at 1112. And “[s]cientific research,” like the computer science and
3D engineering research developed in modifying and examining open
source code for computer CAD files, “is generally thought to advance
more quickly when scientists and engineers are free to broadly discuss
their work.” Id. To enact a prior restraint on all of these because of potential and non-specific unlawful uses by foreign individuals is
“[s]urely . . . to burn the house to roast a pig.” Butler v. Michigan, 352
U.S. 380, 383 (1957). Numerous Supreme Court cases have agreed, including several per curiam opinions.
In Free Speech Coalition, for example, the Court struck down a
prior restraint on pornography that “appears to be” or “conveys the impression” that the actors in the work are minors, whether or not those
actors were in fact consenting adults. 535 U.S. at 258; 18 U.S.C.
14
§ 2256(B), (D) (2000). The government justified its prior restraint on
the “ground that it may encourage pedophiles to engage in illegal conduct.” Free Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. at 254. The Court struck down
the ban in light of the fact that “[t]he harm does not necessarily follow
from the speech, but depends on some unquantified potential for subsequent criminal acts,” and that “the government may not prohibit speech
because it increases the chance an unlawful act will be committed ‘at
some indefinite time in the future.’” Id. at 250, 253 (quoting Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105, 108 (1973) (per curiam) and citing Brandenburg v.
Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969) (per curiam)).
As the Free Speech Coalition Court declared: “the mere tendency
of speech to encourage unlawful acts is not a sufficient reason for banning it,” and that “[p]rotected speech does not become unprotected
merely because it resembles the latter. The Constitution requires the
reverse.” Id. at 253, 255 (quoting and citing Broadrick v. Oklahoma, 413
U.S. 601, 612 (1973)). Similarly, Defense Distributed’s speech is significantly attenuated from the potential harm and, accordingly, the government may not prohibit it.
15
The principle employed in Free Speech Coalition comes from a
long line of Supreme Court precedent, dating back to the 1930s. In
1939, the Court addressed the question of municipal prior restraints on
the distribution of handbills in public areas. Four municipalities argued
that handbills could thus be restrained because of their potential to contribute to littering. Schneider v. State, 308 U.S. 147, 162 (1939) (“The
motive of the legislation under attack . . . is held by the courts below to
be the prevention of littering of the streets and, although the alleged offenders were not charged with themselves scattering paper in the
streets, their convictions were sustained upon the theory that distribution by them encouraged or resulted in such littering.”). The Court held
that “the purpose to keep the streets clean and of good appearance is insufficient to justify an ordinance which prohibits a person rightfully on
a public street from handing literature to one willing to receive it.” Id.
at 163. In other words, the Court stopped on First Amendment grounds
the restriction of an essential method of mass dissemination of speech
whose sole justification had been to prevent unlawful behavior.
In 1948, the Court faced an overbreadth challenge to New York’s
anti-crime literature law, a prior restraint that made it a misdemeanor
16
to publish media “‘principally made up of criminal news, police reports,
or accounts of criminal deeds, or pictures, or stories of deeds of bloodshed, lust or crime.’” Winters v. New York, 333 U.S. 507, 508 (1948)
(quoting N.Y. Penal Law § 1141(2) (McKinney’s 1947)). New York argued that crime literature could become “‘vehicles for inciting violent
and depraved crime’” at some future time among some indefinite individuals. Id. at 513 (quoting People v. Winters, 294 N.Y. 545, 550 (1945)).
The Court made short work of New York’s argument, noting that
“[w]hat is one man’s amusement, teaches another doctrine . . . [the
works at issue] are as much entitled to the protection of free speech as
the best of literature.” Id. at 510; see also Cohen v. California, 403 U.S.
15, 25 (1971) (“[I]t is nevertheless often true that one man’s vulgarity is
another’s lyric.”). The Court continued: “On its face, the subsection here
involved violates the rule . . . that statutes which include prohibitions of
acts fairly within the protection of a free press are void. It covers detective stories, treatises on crime, reports of battle carnage, et cetera.” Id.
at 512. Even an authoritative limiting construction by the New York
Court of Appeals was not sufficient to save the statute from the overbreadth challenge. Id. at 514-516, 518-20.
17
In 1957, Justice Frankfurter wrote for the Court to strike down a
Michigan ban on disseminating literature that could have a “potentially
deleterious influence upon youth,” such as “‘tending to incite minors to
violent or depraved or immoral acts.’” Butler, 352 U.S. at 381, 383 (quoting Michigan Penal Code § 343 (1955)). The legislation in that case was
“not reasonably restricted to the evil with which it is said to deal.” Id. at
383. It “arbitrarily curtails” the freedom of speech, something that “history has attested as the indispensable condition for the maintenance
and progress of a free society.” Id. at 384. Again the Court made clear
that the mere potential for lawful speech to facilitate unlawful acts was
an insufficient justification by itself for a prior restraint.
Two of the most important precedents in this line of cases followed: Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) (per curiam), and New
York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971) (per curiam).
Brandenburg provides a baseline for judging statutes that prohibit protected speech because of the chance it could encourage crime. In that
case, a Klansman was charged with violating Ohio’s Criminal Syndicalism Statute for a political speech encouraging an armed march on Congress. Brandenburg, 395 U.S. at 444-47. The Court held that, unless
18
such encouragement is “inciting or producing imminent lawless action
and is likely to incite or produce such action,” it is protected by the First
Amendment. Id. at 447.
In New York Times, the Court held that a prior restraint injunction was not justified on the printing of the then-classified Pentagon
Papers by the Times and the Washington Post. New York Times, 403
U.S. at 714. Individual justices had much more to say about suppressing lawful speech to stop potential and non-specific unlawful uses. Justice Black, joined by Justice Douglas, wrote a concurrence to note that
public discourse should be “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” Id. at
724 (Black, J., concurring) (quoting New York Times Co. v. Sullivan,
376 U.S. 254, 269-70 (1964)). Moreover, “[t]he word ‘security’ is a broad,
vague generality” that cannot simply be used as a talismanic incantation to permit a prior restraint on speech. Id. at 719.
Justice Brennan noted that the “First Amendment tolerates absolutely no prior judicial restraints . . . predicated upon surmise or conjecture that untoward consequences may result.” Id. at 725-26 (Brennan,
J., concurring). Justice Stewart, joined by Justice White, evoked the
Brandenburg majority when he noted that because he “cannot say that
19
disclosure of any of them will surely result in direct, immediate, and irreparable damage,” the First Amendment protects the distribution of
the then-classified information. Id. at 730 (Stewart, J., concurring). Justice White, joined in turn by Justice Stewart, contrasted the blanket
prior restraint in the case with the criminal sanctions imposed by statutes that relate to imminently harmful information like “movements of
the fleet, the troops, the aircraft, the location of powder factories, the location of defense works, and all that sort of thing.” Id. at 734-35 (White,
J., concurring) (quoting 55 Cong. Rec. 2009 (1917) (remarks of Sen.
Henry F. Ashurst)). Accordingly, Justice White found that the prior restraint in that case could not pass constitutional muster because it was
not sufficiently narrow to touch on those circumstances of actual imminent harm and there were sufficient criminal statutes to deter bad conduct. See id. at 735-40.
A decade later, the Court held that, despite the fact there were individual acts of violence involved in the political speech of the sevenyear boycott of white-owned businesses in Claiborne County, Mississippi, the boycott’s overall speech was protected by the First Amendment.
NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 915 (1982). While the
20
lawful speech tangentially encouraged unlawful acts by virtue of the
tension created by the boycott itself, the speech was nevertheless protected. Id. at 933 (“The use of speeches, marches, and threats of social
ostracism cannot provide the basis for a damages award. But violent
conduct is beyond the pale of constitutional protection.”) The Court took
into account that “‘blanket prohibition of association with a group having both legal and illegal aims’ would present ‘a real danger that legitimate political expression or association would be impaired.’” Id. at 919
(quoting Scales v. United States, 367 U.S. 203, 229 (1961)).
In 1989, the Court again protected lawful speech from indefinite
and vague claims that it could be used for unlawful purposes. Sable
Communications of Calif., Inc. v. FCC, 492 U.S. 115 (1989). In Sable
Communications, a federal ban on obscene telephone communications
via interstate commerce criminalized all commercial phone-sex lines.
Id. at 123 (quoting 47 U.S.C § 223(b) (1988)). The reason for the blanket
prior restraint was to “restrict access to minors” to phone-sex services.
Id. at 122-23. In striking down the ban, the Court expressly relied on
Butler. See, e.g., id. at 131 (quoting Butler, 352 U.S. at 383).
21
Similar to the restraint struck down in Claiborne Hardware, the
Liberator files should not be subject to blanket prohibition of Internet
dissemination, lest legitimate expression be chilled. See Greenberg, 3-D
Printed Guns as Art; supra Part I.A (noting artistic, scientific, and political uses of the computer-code speech). And similar to the restrictions in
Butler and Sable Communications, the prior restraint on Americans’
viewing Defense Distributed’s files online impermissibly limits U.S. audiences to speech suitable for foreign audiences. Cf. Sable, 492 U.S. at
127 (“The Court found the law to be insufficiently tailored since it denied adults their free speech rights by allowing them to read only what
was acceptable for children.”) (quoting Butler, 352 U.S. at 380)); Butler,
352 U.S. at 383-84 (“The incidence of this enactment is to reduce the
adult population of Michigan to reading only what is fit for children. It
thereby arbitrarily curtails one of those liberties of the individual . . .”).
The Court has even more recently reaffirmed the basic principle
that lawful speech cannot be suppressed in order to prevent potential
unlawful uses. In Bartnicki v. Vopper, the Court was “firmly convinced”
that “a stranger’s illegal conduct does not suffice to remove the First
Amendment protection shield from speech.” 532 U.S. 514, 518, 535
22
(2001); see also id. at 529-30 (“[I]t would be quite remarkable to hold
that speech by a law-abiding possessor of information can be suppressed
in order to deter conduct by a non-law-abiding third party.”). Bartnicki
asked whether the First Amendment protected a radio station from suit
when it broadcasted the results of illegally intercepted communications.
Id. at 519-20. The government’s interest in allowing the private action
against the publisher rested in discouraging illegal conduct such as
eavesdropping. See id. at 521-24. Yet again, the interest in discouraging
potential illegal conduct was not sufficient to warrant restricting protected First Amendment expression. Such an interest is likewise insufficient to restrain the distribution of open-source files.
In sum, while the government certainly has the power to constraint certain categories of speech, like obscenity and the urging of
imminent violence, those categories are specific and narrowly drawn.
See generally Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973) (obscenity); Brandenburg, 395 U.S. at 444 (instigating violence); Chaplinsky v. New
Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942) (fighting words). Here the government
has presented no evidence to demonstrate the instigation of imminent
violence or invoke any other categorical prohibition.
23
II.
THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S CATEGORICAL BAN ON
DISTRIBUTING THE CAD FILES VIA THE INTERNET IS
AN UNLAWFUL PRIOR RESTRAINT ON THE MASS DISSEMINATION OF PROTECTED SPEECH
The Internet is an essential method of mass dissemination beyond
the scale of newspapers and television. A prior restraint on lawful
speech uploaded online cannot even pass rational basis review when the
harm of potential unlawful action is attenuated and non-specific.
A. The Internet Is an Essential Method of Mass Speech Dissemination, So a Prior Restraint on Its Use Is Suspect
It has quickly become axiomatic that a prior restraint on Internet
communications cuts off an incomparably important avenue for American expression. Consider the following data points, all of which have become quickly dated:
 The total number of Internet users worldwide has reached
over 3.2 billion. Aaron Mamiit, 3.2 Billion: Number of People
Using the Internet Today, Tech Times (May 28, 2015),
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/55773/20150528/3-2billion-number-of-people-using-the-internet-today.htm.
 Of the total American population, 86.75 percent have Internet access, about 280 million users. Internet Users, Internet
Live
Statistics
(last
updated
July
1,
2014),
http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users.
 In 2012, there were 634 million websites, with 50 million
new sites added per month. Internet 2012 in Numbers, Pingdom.com (January 16, 2013), http://royal.pingdom.com/
2013/01/16/internet-2012-in-numbers.
24
 The U.S. hosted 43 percent of the top million websites that
year. Id.
 Sixty-nine percent of Americans get news from the Internet.
How Americans Get Their News, American Press Inst. (Mar.
17, 2014), www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/
reports/survey-research/how-americans-get-news.
Suffice it to say, the Internet is a revolutionary means of mass communications, so speech restrictions must be drawn with surgical precision.
In striking down municipal ordinances prohibiting the distribution of handbills in Schneider, for example, the Supreme Court was not
persuaded that laws should be upheld “because their operation is limited to streets and alleys and leaves persons free to distribute printed
matter in other public places.” Schneider, 308 U.S. at 163. “[T]he
streets,” wrote the Court, “are natural and proper places for the dissemination of information and opinion; and one is not to have the exercise of
his liberty of expression in appropriate places abridged on the plea that
it may be exercised in some other place.” Id. Meanwhile, pamphlets deserve special solicitude because they are “effective instruments in the
dissemination of opinion.” Id. at 164.
In the rare cases where the Court has upheld prior restraints,
these restrictions were narrowly tailored rather than applied to broad
25
channels of speech dissemination. In Broadrick v. Oklahoma, for example, the Court sustained an Oklahoma law that “restricts the political
activities of the State’s classified civil servants in much the same manner that the Hatch Act proscribes partisan political activities of federal
employees.” 413 U.S. 601, 602 (1973). The statute focused on electioneering activities and not the “right as a citizen privately to express his
opinion and to cast his vote,” so the Court upheld the restriction because it “seeks to regulate political activity in an even-handed and neutral manner.” Id. at 606, 616.
In other words, a blanket prior restraint on an important channel
of mass dissemination like the Internet is highly suspect.
B. Prior Restraint of the Mass Dissemination of Protected
Speech Cannot Even Pass Rational Basis Review
Applying intermediate scrutiny, the court below found that Defense Distributed has “not shown a substantial likelihood of success on
the merits of their claim under the First Amendment.” Defense Distributed, 2015 WL 4658921, at *10. Even though “the AECA and ITAR do
not prohibit domestic communications,” under the ITAR, the dissemination of the open source CAD files is an “export” of technical arms information according to the government, and thus subject to prepublication
26
commodity jurisdiction review and prior restraint without agency approval. See id. Even if the government were correct in its view on what
constitutes an “export,” however, such a prior restraint on protected
speech cannot even pass rational basis review.
As discussed more fully supra at I.B, the Supreme Court has overturned prior restraints similar to the one in this case. In Schneider, the
Supreme Court disagreed with the court below that a prohibition on
distributing handbills in public fora “does not transgress the bounds of
reasonableness.” 308 U.S. at 155. In Butler, the Court found that a prior
restraint on adult-appropriate obscene literature in order to avoid potential unlawful use by minors was “[s]urely . . . to burn the house to
roast the pig.” 352 U.S. at 381-83.
A blanket prior restraint that sweeps in the online dissemination
of protected public domestic speech lacks the “precision of regulation”
sufficient to pass even rational basis review. See Claiborne Hardware,
458 U.S. at 916 (quoting NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415, 438 (1963));
Butler, 352 U.S. at 381-83; Schneider, 308 U.S. at 155; see also Free
Speech Coalition, 535 U.S. at 252 (affirming the same under heightened
scrutiny). New York Times subsequently upheld the “heavy presump-
27
tion” against prior restraints on lawful speech has the potential for unlawful uses. See New York Times Co., 403 U.S. at 731, 733 (White, J.,
concurring).2 In several subsequent cases the Court made specific note
of its strong distaste for prior restraints. In Sable Communications, the
Court took its conclusion directly from Butler in striking down the federal phone-sex ban, referencing the rational basis standard: “As Justice
Frankfurter said in that case, ‘[s]urely, this is to burn the house to roast
the pig.’ In our judgment, this case, like Butler, presents us with ‘legislation not reasonably restricted to the evil with which it is said to deal.’”
492 U.S. at 127 (quoting and citing Butler, 352 U.S. at 383). In Free
Speech Coalition, the Court again clarified that “[t]he evil in question
2
A “heavy presumption” against prior restraints is as old as the nation itself:
That where absolute freedom of discussion is prohibited, or restrained,
responsibility vanishes. That any attempt to prohibit, or restrain that
freedom, may well be construed to proceed from conscious guilt. That
the people of America have always manifested a most jealous sensibility, on the subject of this inestimable right, and have ever regarded it
as a fundamental principle in their government, and carefully engrafted in the constitution.
St. George Tucker, 2 Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England with
Notes of Reference, to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the
United States, and the Commonwealth of Virginia App. at Note G, 16-17. (1803); see
also id. at 17 (noting that even for proponents of the Alien and Sedition Acts of
1798, “[T]he liberty of the press consists not in a license for every man to publish
what he pleases . . . but in a permission to publish without previous restraint.”).
28
depends upon the actor’s unlawful conduct, conduct defined as criminal
quite apart from any link to the speech in question. This established
that the speech ban is not narrowly drawn.” 535 U.S. at 252.
Even in cases approving of prior restraints, the Court is very careful to note the extremely narrow nature and impact of the holding. For
example, in Broadrick, the Court upheld a prior restraint on election activities by civil servants. 413 U.S. 601. The Court there specifically noted that petitioner’s activities (fundraising for their own superior at
work) fell “squarely within the ‘hard core’ of the statute,” and that the
state regulator and attorney general had “construed 818’s explicit approval of private political expression to include virtually any expression
not within the context of active partisan political campaigning.” Id. at
608, 617. Indeed, the Court pointed out that the prior restraint was not
so broad as to cover “the wearing of political buttons or the use of
bumper stickers”—thus substantially keeping open the marketplace of
ideas. See id. at 618.
Moreover, blanket prior restraints like this one are typically appropriate only in the absence of a criminal statute. See, e.g., Free Speech
Coalition, 535 U.S. at 245 (“‘Among free men, the deterrents ordinarily
29
to be applied to prevent crime are education and punishment for violations of the law, not abridgement of the rights of free speech.’”) (quoting
Kingsley Int’l Pictures Corp. v. Regents of Univ. of N.Y., 360 U.S. 684,
689 (1959)); Bartnicki, 532 U.S. at 529 (“the normal method of deterring
unlawful conduct is to impose an appropriate sanction on the person
who engages in it. If the sanctions that presently attach to a violation . . . do not provide sufficient deterrence, perhaps those sanctions
should be made more severe.); Schneider, 308 U.S. at 162 (“There are
obvious methods of preventing littering. Amongst these is punishment
of those who actually throw paper on the streets.”); New York Times
Co., 403 U.S. at 734-40 (White, J., concurring). To justify a prior restraint, those criminal statutes must be shown to be incapable of preventing the evil at which it is aimed.
Here, all of the potential harms that concern the government are
already criminalized. There is an applicable criminal law that targets
the foreign export of arms-constructing information, with penalties of
up to 20 years’ imprisonment and a million dollar fine. 22 U.S.C. §
2778(a)-(e) (2014). To justify its prior restraint, the government must
show that it would be the only effective method to prevent such ex-
30
ports—as compared to the criminal statute and any narrower regulations. The government has not met and cannot meet that burden.3
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, amicus urges the court to reverse the
district court and grant the motion for a preliminary injunction.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Ilya Shapiro
Ilya Shapiro
Counsel of Record
Randal J. Meyer (admission pending)
CATO INSTITUTE
1000 Mass. Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 842-0200
ishapiro@cato.org
rmeyer@cato.org
The government especially cannot meet this burden when an artist—
decidedly not a sophisticated arms dealer—can evade the prior restraint by otherwise acquiring the file that is purportedly made unavailable and sending it to a foreign friend to 3D-print. See supra note 1 and accompanying text. The CAD files that
Defense Distributed is restrained from distributing online are now widely available
as downloadable torrent files. Natasha Lennard, The Pirate Bay Steps in to Distribute 3-D Gun Designs, Salon (May 10, 2013), http://www.salon.com/2013/05/10/
the_pirate_bay_steps_in_to_distribute_3d_gun_designs.
3
31
Certificate of Compliance
1. This brief complies with the type-volume limitation of Fed. R. App. P.
32(a)(7)(B) because it contains 4,975 words, excluding the parts of
the brief exempted by Fed. R. App. P. 32(a)(7)(B)(iii).
2. This brief complies with the typeface requirements of Fed. R. App. P.
32(a)(5) and the type style requirements of Fed. R. App. P. 32(a)(6)
because it was prepared using Word 2010 and uses a proportionally
spaced typeface, Century Schoolbook, in 14-point type for body text
and 12-point type for footnotes.
/s/ Ilya Shapiro
Certificate of Filing and Service
On December 17, 2015, I filed this Brief of the Cato Institute as
Amicus Curiae using the CM/ECF System, which will send a Notice of
Filing to all counsel of record.
/s/ Ilya Shapiro
32